So Long, Goodbye
by PowerOfFail
Summary: Post-DH. George writes a letter to Fred as a small goodbye. Dedicated to my kitten who passed earlier today.


I reach forward, and all my fingers brush are the rough strokes of marred canvas, blended colours -- a mute image.

It's all that's really left, except for the memories.

The clothes are being washed, and the house cleaned. It's like you weren't even here, the only mark you've left behind is the hole in our hearts... and a couple scars.

I heard once that scars are the worst part of living, they ruin beauty and wreck perfection -- I have a different opinion.

They're reminders of where you've been, what you've endured. They tell stories, and not all of it is bad.

All the scars I have from being with you, of time spent with you... I never want them to fade, because when they do, I'll have forgotten.

I don't want to forget. You were too much of my life to forget, I can't forget you without forgetting myself, and so the scars will stay and I'll cherish them. They're mine to keep and no one else can have them.

It's hard...not to run outside and look for you, to not pretend that you're just hiding and we're playing a game. I have to make myself remember that you're gone, can't let myself be tricked by a flash of red in the corner of my eye, can't let these hopeful illusions lift me from reality to a realm of dreams.

Am I "okay"?

No.

Will I ever be?

I can't say.

A piece of my heart is missing. You stole it, ran away with it, and still have it. It'll always be yours, and I'll never be complete without it and I can never have it back.

I gave it to you.

I can't ever say that I'll be completely whole again.

How can I keep going?

I don't know. I think I just have to continue life as usual. Go to work, and hang out with our friends and just try to remember you as I go along and try not to stop and cry whenever I see something that reminds me of you. Something that sounds like you.

Something that is you... but isn't.

I'll try, I really will. I'll try to keep going, I know you'll want me to.

How hard will it be?

Hard. I'll always wait for that call that will never come.

Even as the years pass and the stones erode, when the winter snows melt into spring rains that dry up to become harsh summer and the leaves crack and break in autumn that fades to winter and the cycle starts all over again...

Maybe we'll meet again and maybe we won't, but I have to believe that we will, and that you're okay, wherever you are. That you're not in pain, or suffering. That you're having a right old time getting into mischief, just like always...

I have to believe that, and I do.

And until we do meet again, if we ever do, I have these mute pictures and these scars and the memories of our time together, and maybe in the future I'll be okay.

But for right now...I just don't know...

* * *

George could figure no appropriate way to end the letter, so he carefully folded the parchment and wrote his brother's name on the top fold in his most elegant handwriting.

After he put the quill away, he crumpled the parchment in his hand and tossed it dismissively to the ground. He pulled from his jacket pocket a black pack of matches, skillfully lit one and dropped it on the letter.

He took a step back and watched the flames writhe around the letter, licking it and stealing the words, turning the ink into grey smoke against the black sky -- rising, rising. Who would ever read that letter?

No one. He preferred it that way.

The air was brisk and he felt chilled, but did not want a jacket and did not move closer to the small fire. The way it devoured the letter, slipping around the crumpled edges, singing the sides and burning holes here and there among the script seemed to, with every crackle, eat away at him -- his very heart became the paper and the fire, the grief, slowly conquered him.

He could not bear to watch his final good-bye be destroyed so, the final bond between he and the deceased burned half by death and now completed by him. His past was in that dying letter and by letting it die, he was letting go of his old life.

He would never forget -- he could never forget, but he had to make an effort to keep going.

Yet he could not look away, he felt had to be there -- it was an obligation he had to fulfill.

He thought that maybe the smoke made of the words would retain them in its particles and make their way to who needed to hear them, to whom he was writing.

It was all he could hope as he watched the last of the flames pop once and give out, trying to grasp onto life only to fail. The collection of black ashes remaining did not spark with even a single ember.

A breath of wind sighed past and what was done was done.

He turned away, hands in his pockets and heart as cold as the ashes he was leaving behind.

He walked down the hill, memories running through his mind, gripping a picture tightly in his fist, hoping he'd never forget.

No voice in the wind or a shape in the clouds were present -- nature was just nature and he a lonely soul wandering without his friend.

The world was silent was he whispered, "So long, good-bye..."

* * *

**A/N::** This is a fanfiction dedicated to my kitten.  
Pippin, my cat, passed away and...well. The beginning part is basically how I feel right about now.  
I felt it appropriate for a fanfiction, so turned it into one.  
Well...Just some post-DH stuff to help me cope with the loss.  
And I know it sounds wimpy to be so upset about a cat, but trust me, this cat meant the _world_ to me. _Nothing_ matters to me more than he did.  
Anyway.  
Guess that's it.  
Thought of the Day: So long, goodbye, Pip. So long, goodbye.


End file.
